their mother's chair, tugging at her gown to attract attention. "Jean!" asked Vanna suddenly, "are you happy?" Jean stared at her with stolid surprise. "Of course I am happy," she said flatly. "What do you mean?" "But are you blissfully, ecstatically, unspeakably happy--almost too happy to live?" Jean's stare took on a tinge of affront. "No! Of course not. Why should I be?" "Why should you not? If such a thing is possible to any one on earth, it ought to be to you. You have everything that is worth having-- everything! Robert--his wonderful love; these children, interest in life, hope, expectation. You are so _rich_!" Jean's face softened. She looked at the white-robed figures at her feet, and for a moment her eyes shone; for a moment, and then once more the shadow fell. "Yes," she said. "Oh, yes, I know! I _am_ well off, but one can't live on the heights; and, oh, dear! oh, dear, there are such worries! Morton has given me notice. It's so difficult to find a decent cook for small wages. I shall have to begin the weary old hunt once more. And Lorna keeps complaining of her eyes. Robert says she must see an oculist, but I do so dread it. If _she_ has to wear spectacles it will break my heart. And you remember those dining-room curtains that I sent to be dyed? They came back to-day the wrong shade--simply shrieking at the walls. Ruined! Isn't it maddening--I feel so depressed--" She looked across the room with a transparent appeal for sympathy, but with a quick, glad laugh Vanna leapt to her feet and swept towards the door. "Good-bye. I'm going. Thank you so much!" "_Going_!" Jean rushed after her in dismay. "Vanna, you've just come. Thank me for _what_? You mad creature, what do you mean?" "My lesson! Don't stop me, Jean, I'll come again--I must go." She fled into the street, and the sound of her laughter floated back to Jean as she stood by the open door. "_The dining-room curtains don't match_!" Jean, the beloved, had said these astounding words; had advanced them in all seriousness as a reason for unhappiness! In the midst of plenty, this infinitesimal crumb could mar her joy. And Jean was but a type of her class. All over London while their lonely sisters were eating their hearts with envy, the women rich in home, husband, and children, were allowing pigmy trials to obstruct the sun, squandering their joy, wasting the precious days. And at the other end of the world that young girl who was Piers Rendall's wife, the mother of his child, she too, perchance, was vexing herself over many things, bemoaning her trials, so dulled by custom that she no longer appreciated her joys.